President Barack Obama’s 2010 defense budget request will be delayed, possibly until April, White House and Defense Department officials said.

The president’s annual budget request usually is submitted to Congress the first Monday in February. However, with only a week in office, the new administration will need more time for a substantial review of the submission, officials said.

Office of Management and Budget officials projected the delay in April and sent a memorandum delaying the budget submission.

Defense Secretary Bob Gates will be testifying tomorrow to the Senate Armed Services Committee. (Now that the Panetta hearing is cancelled, I know what I’ll be covering!) This had better be a large part of his first-ever testimony as Obama’s Pentagon chief.

Earlier this year, McCain advocated a cut in Pentagon funding for Future Combat Systems (FCS), the military’s pricey and controversial modernization program. But now he is attacking Sen. Barack Obama for the same position.

In July, McCain said the program should be “ended” during a “scrub” of the entire Pentagon budget, notes the article, and McCain has spent years criticizing “the over-budget, behind-schedule FCS program” — it spiked to $161 billion in 2005, exceeding its contract.

The Army Times headline questions whether McCain is fibbing or flip-flopping — an unusually sharp tone. Forget the military rhetoric, the McCain campaign rebuffed the Army Times’ requests and refused to even discuss the issue — despite “phone calls and emails requesting clarification.” A military expert also told the paper that McCain was being deceitful, since he was “more critical” of the program than any other senator, while Obama was “detailed and thoughtful” in outlining plans for “future military investment.”

The Obama campaign talked with the Times for the article, and then pounced on McCain’s “lie” in an interview with TWI on Monday.

“In one fail swoop John McCain abandoned both his promise to fight wasteful spending and his pledge to run a campaign with honor,” campaign spokesman Hari Sevugan said. “Is there anything John McCain won’t say or do; any principle he won’t compromise; any lie he won’t tell, for the sake of scoring cheap political points?  It’s clear John McCain would rather lose his integrity than lose an election,” he added.

Since the McCain campaign had no comment for The Army Times, I won’t be waiting by the laptop to hear their response to this issue. If they do offer an argument about why McCain is distorting his own very public record on this program, however, or why he thinks it’s effective to criticize Obama for a position that they share, I will update you here.